Sat May 10, 2014

'Senior Black Correspondent' Larry Wilmore Takes Colbert Slot

Larry Wilmore, The Daily Show's "senior black correspondent," will take over the 11:30 p.m. slot on Comedy Central after Stephen Colbert leaves for CBS at the end of the year.

The 52-year-old writer and actor will begin his new show, The Minority Report With Larry Wilmore, in January, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Colbert is leaving The Colbert Report to assume the chair left open by David Letterman's retirement from the Late Show.

Wilmore will move from L.A. to New York for the gig under a deal with Busboy Productions, Jon Stewart's production company.

"The idea for 'The Minority Report with Larry Wilmore,' as the show will be known, came from Mr. Stewart himself, who proposed that the 11:30 p.m. time period behind his nightly 'Daily Show' was the ideal place for a new format, one that would 'provide an opportunity for the underrepresented voices out there,' as Michele Ganeless, the president of Comedy Central said in an interview."

Wilmore told the Hollywood Reporter, "I'm beyond excited to have this chance to continue my relationships with Comedy Central and the brilliant Jon Stewart. I love the city of New York and promise to only wear my Laker T-shirts when I'm layering."

The new show will end the utter domination of white men in late night talk shows. Wilmore was one of several names suggested for Colbert's time slot, along with comedian Amy Schumer and Daily Show veterans Samantha Bee and Aasif Mandvi.

"While Larry Wilmore is a brilliant comic and showrunner," Stewart told the media, "this is all just a complicated ruse to get him to move to New York and turn him into a Knicks fan."

Colbert famously drops the Ts when pronouncing both his name and "Report." "Wilmore" conveniently rhymes with Colbert's pronunciation, but there's no word whether he'll follow in those phonetic footsteps.